The road heading north out of Outpost 404 was supposed to be a low-level transit route. Usually, it was a peaceful dirt path winding through green pine trees.

Not today.

As Dante and Casanova marched away from the safe zone, the environment rapidly deteriorated.

The clear violet sky above them turned a bruised sickly purple.

A new system interface locked itself into the top corner of the vision of Dante.

[Zone Modifier Active: Void-Blight]

[Toxicity Level: Moderate]

[Effect: All indigenous wildlife within a 10-mile radius of Wyrmrest Caverns has undergone forced mutation. Aggression is locked to maximum. Base stats increased by 300%.]

"This place smells like a dumpster behind a sushi restaurant," Casanova complained and pinched his nose.

The bard was trailing a few steps behind Dante and was completely out of place in his torn silk shirt and feathered hat.

"Keep your eyes open," Dante said. His hand rested on the hilt of the [Crimson Edge]. "The system just tripled the stats of everything in these woods."

"That is exactly why I brought you, Big Brother," Casanova beamed. He pulled his lute around to his front.

He strummed a quick chaotic chord. "Do not worry. I have got your back. Check your buffs."

A tiny green icon popped up on the interface of Dante.

[Buff Received: Song of the Scoundrel]

[Effect: +3% Movement Speed. +2% Attack Speed. Duration: 60 seconds.]

Dante stared at the prompt. "Three percent."

"Hey, it adds up!" Casanova argued defensively. "And it costs almost no mana to maintain. I am basically an engine of efficiency."

"Just do not pull aggro," Dante sighed.

They kept walking.

The dirt path was heavily trampled.

The massive swarm of players who had sprinted out of the Outpost looking for double EXP had already paved the way.

But as Dante and Casanova pushed deeper into the blighted zone, the reality of the Catastrophic-level event became blatantly obvious.

The double EXP was bait.

The path was littered with dropped beginner loot.

Wooden clubs, rusty swords, and cheap linen tunics were scattered everywhere.

There were no player corpses. Dead avatars shattered into pixels and respawned back at the Outpost.

But the sheer amount of dropped gear meant absolute slaughter had just taken place here.

"Oh man," Casanova muttered. His bravado faded as he stepped over a pile of iron arrows. "They got massacred."

A loud guttural squeal echoed from the rotting trees to their left.

The heavy underbrush violently shook. Three monsters burst onto the dirt path and completely blocked the way forward.

Dante recognized the baseline shape. They used to be Crag-Boars.

But the Void-Blight had completely warped them.

They were twice their original size. Their gray stone armor had cracked open to reveal glowing pulsating purple tumors underneath.

Their eyes burned with a toxic black light. Dark corrosive sludge dripped from their oversized tusks.

[Mutated Monster: Blight-Boar]

[Level: 12]

[HP: 3,500 / 3,500]

"Level 12?!" Casanova shrieked. He backed up so fast he almost tripped over his own boots. "The normal ones are Level 2! That is not a mutation, that is a completely different monster!"

The lead Blight-Boar locked its black eyes on Dante.

It didn’t do the standard warning scrape with its hooves. It just charged instantly and moved at a terrifying speed.

The sludge dripping from its tusks hissed as it hit the dirt.

Dante didn’t use a Zenith-tier skill. He didn’t want to burn the stamina on a random trash mob.

He drew the [Crimson Edge] and stepped directly into the charge.

Right as the oversized tusks were about to gore his chest, Dante sidestepped smoothly. He brought the red blade down in a heavy two-handed chop.

The Silver-grade sword cleaved cleanly through the mutated stone plating of the boar and buried itself deep into the glowing purple tumor on its back.

[-1,850! Critical Hit!]

The Blight-Boar shrieked. Its health bar instantly dropped by half.

It crashed into the dirt and skidded past Dante from its own momentum.

But it didn’t die.

Normally, a critical hit from a Level 19 Warrior with a Silver-grade weapon would instantly delete a Level 12 mob.

But the Void-Blight modifier was actively repairing the damage. The purple tumor pulsed, and the health bar of the boar ticked back up.

[Void-Blight Regeneration: +200 HP]

"They have passive healing," Dante noted. He spun around as the other two Blight-Boars charged him simultaneously.

"Use the big fire thing!" Casanova yelled from a safe distance. He hugged a dead pine tree. "Do the bird!"

"I am not wasting a fifteen-second cooldown on pigs," Dante said.

He gripped the [Crimson Edge] tightly and activated the Novice-tier elemental skill he had learned from the Outpost Elder.

He didn’t trigger the 10,000x Multiplier. He just used the base skill.

[Skill Executed: Ember Strike]

The blade of his sword coated itself in a layer of standard flickering orange fire.

As the two mutated boars reached him, Dante swung horizontally. The fiery blade slashed across the snouts of both monsters.

[-900]

[-900]

[Status Effect Applied: Burn]

The fire was exactly what the system required. The Void-Blight was highly susceptible to elemental cleansing.

The moment the flames touched the purple tumors, the boars let out a horrific screech.

The passive regeneration instantly shut down. The purple glowing flesh began to rapidly turn to black ash. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Dante followed up with a brutal downward thrust to execute the first boar. He spun on his heel and decapitated the second one.

The third boar was still heavily wounded from his initial strike and tried to stand up.

Dante casually walked over and drove his burning blade through its skull.

The three massive beasts shattered into purple polygons.

[Target Eliminated: Blight-Boar x3]

[Event Modifier Active: 200% EXP Gained.]

Dante watched his experience bar jump a significant chunk. The modifier was incredibly generous.

He looked down at the loot. The boars had dropped a handful of silver coins and a strange glowing purple vial.

[Item Appraised: Void-Tainted Blood]

[Tier: Bronze]

[Description: A highly volatile crafting material. Extremely valuable to alchemists willing to risk the corruption.]

"Dibs!" Casanova yelled and darted out from behind his tree.

The bard scrambled across the dirt. He scooped up the silver coins and the purple vial. He tossed them into a small leather satchel on his hip.

"I thought you were rich," Dante said and sheathed his sword.

"I am," Casanova said and patted his satchel. "Because I do not leave money on the ground. Wealth is a mindset, Big Brother."

Dante shook his head and kept walking.

For the next two miles, the road to the caverns was an active war zone.

Dante carved a path through dozens of mutated wolves, corrupted bears, and massive sludge-spewing spiders.

He relied entirely on his base stats and [Ember Strike] to cut down the inflated health pools of the blighted monsters.

Casanova trailed behind. He vacuumed up the double-drop-rate loot and spammed his three-percent speed buff.

The independent players they passed were not having the same luck.

Dante saw parties of five getting completely wiped out by a single mutated bear.

He watched heavily armored tanks melt inside their armor after getting hit by corrosive spider venom.

The Void-Blight was actively pushing the boundaries of the safe zone outward. It claimed the lives of anyone foolish enough to chase the event rewards without the proper gear.

"This is getting intense," Casanova muttered and stepped over another pile of dropped player weapons.

The bard was actually sweating now. His flamboyant energy was completely subdued by the oppressive purple atmosphere.

"We must be getting close to the source."

"We are," Dante said and looked ahead.

The rotting pine trees finally gave way to a massive sheer wall of gray stone.

At the base of the wall was a gaping jagged opening that led deep underground. It looked like a giant open mouth.

Purple mist actively billowed out of the darkness and spilled onto the surrounding rocks.

Wyrmrest Caverns.

The path leading up to the cavern entrance narrowed significantly. It forced anyone traveling north into a tight fifty-yard-wide chokepoint flanked by steep rocky embankments.

Dante stopped walking.

His Intuition stat flared sharply. It wasn’t the dull warning of a monster spawn.

It was the sharp hyper-focused feeling of being watched by multiple organized targets.

"Hold up," Dante said and threw his arm out to stop Casanova.

"What? Is it a boss?" Casanova asked. He shrank behind the broad shoulders of Dante.

Dante didn’t answer. He scanned the steep rocky ridges flanking the chokepoint ahead.

Through the purple mist, he saw the faint metallic glint of drawn steel.

***

A hundred yards ahead, hidden flawlessly among the rocks overlooking the chokepoint, Danus lay flat on his stomach.

He was a lieutenant in the Legion of Blades. He wore sleek unreflective gray armor designed specifically for ambushes. His face was covered by a dark iron mask.

Below him, positioned perfectly along the narrow pass, were eighty fully geared Legionnaires.

They weren’t a disorganized mob like Vanguard’s Legacy.

They were silent. They communicated purely through hand signals and private interface pings. They were formed into a perfect kill-box.

The interface of Danus chimed.

[Scout 4: Target acquired. Moving into Wyrmrest Gulch. Accompanied by one unknown player (Class: Bard).]

Danus pulled a small brass spyglass from his belt and peered through the thick purple fog.

He spotted Dante standing at the edge of the chokepoint. The massive [Sun-Forged Cuirass] was unmistakable.

"Target confirmed," Danus whispered into his guild comms. "Hold your positions. Let him step into the array."

Danus rolled onto his back and pulled a heavy metallic cylinder from his inventory.

It wasn’t a standard paper scroll. It was an intricate highly engineered piece of magical hardware.

[Item Identified: Nullification Array (Guild-Tier)]

[Effect: Creates a 100-yard localized suppression field. All hostile entities within the field suffer a 50% reduction in base Attack Power, Defense, and Speed. Disables all equipment passives above Silver-tier.]

It was the ultimate trump card of the Legion. Valerius had ordered Danus to use it specifically for this hit.

Vanguard’s Legacy had failed because they tried to fight a monster on its own terms.

Danus wasn’t going to make that mistake.

The array wouldn’t just lower the damage of Dante. It would completely shut down the [Sun-Forged Cuirass] and turn his Gold-tier defense into dead weight.

Danus twisted the top of the metal cylinder. A low humming sound began to emanate from the device.

"Listen up," Danus ordered through the comms.

"The target relies on a spatial teleport and a high-burst fire attack. The moment I trigger the array, his stats are halved. He becomes mortal."

"Heavy infantry, you lock down the ground. Archers, you stagger your shots to interrupt his casting animations. Do not give him an inch to breathe."

[Legionnaire 12: What about the bard, sir?]

Danus glanced through the spyglass at Casanova. The bard was currently hiding behind Dante and clutching his lute like a shield.

"Ignore the bard," Danus said dismissively. "He is a non-combatant. Focus everything on Dan. Valerius wants his head on a pike by sundown."

Danus placed his thumb over the final activation rune on the cylinder.

He watched the chokepoint and waited for Dante to take those final few steps into the kill-box.

"Come on," Danus muttered. "Take the bait."